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Jamie Raskin and Marge Baker Unpack the McCutcheon Case

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 4:26pm — Paul

Two days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, PFAW Senior Fellow Jamie Raskin and Executive Vice President Marge Baker held a telebriefing with PFAW members to discuss the case – and what Americans can do about it.

Jamie noted that with the fall of the overall, or "aggregate," contribution limits, we are now past the midpoint in right-wing efforts to dismantle our nation's campaign finance laws. We've seen the same five conservative Justices strike down efforts to promote viable public financing of campaigns and open the door to unlimited corporate expenditures to affect elections. Left untouched – so far – are base limits (the cap on the amount you can give to a particular candidate) and laws against coordinating certain political expenditures.

Jamie also criticized the Court's absurdly cramped reading of the First Amendment, such that campaign finance laws can only be justified if they are intended to prevent real or perceived "quid pro quo" corruption, which is essentially bribery. Perhaps the next question for the Roberts Court will be whether any campaign contribution limits can be upheld as long as there are bribery laws on the books.

Marge Baker was also on the call, fielding questions from PFAW members, several of whom had participated in the rallies nationwide that were held on Wednesday in response to the ruling. A couple of major themes kept coming up:

Efforts to mitigate these rulings by legislation or regulation and more comprehensive efforts to reverse them completely by constitutional amendment are complementary. As people organize to advocate for an amendment, they also create the political landscape needed to enact the remedial provisions.

When you vote for president and senator, you are casting a vote that will determine who sits on our nation's courts. McCutcheon may have been issued this week, but it was set in motion by the elections that allowed those five conservative justices to be nominated and confirmed.

The issue is much greater than whether campaign finance laws address "quid pro quo" corruption. The issue is the health of our democracy. When a tiny elite of powerful, super-wealthy individuals have an outsized role in selecting and influencing our elected officials, drowning out the interests of everyone else, this poses a grave danger to our democracy – a danger that Americans around the country are increasingly recognizing and doing something about.